Whenever a flooring store reaches out about Service Buddy, the biggest question on their mind is the same one: what happens when I switch?
It makes sense. You're running a store, you can't shut down for two weeks while someone installs software, and the last thing you want is to do this twice.
So let me walk you through exactly what happens, because I've done this with flooring, carpet, and rug retailers across the country — from single-showroom shops to multi-location operations — and it's not nearly as painful as you're picturing.
You get the founder who built the platform
As soon as you sign, I personally lead your onboarding from kickoff to go-live. I'm on every prep meeting, I run your training, and I'm there on the day you flip the switch. You get my cell phone number from day one. Not a help-desk ticket, not a third-party consultant on their second week, not a chatbot.
Behind me is our in-house migration team — terrific Service Buddy engineers and a client success team that deeply cares about you winning. They've pulled customers, products, vendors, and decades of history out of every legacy flooring system you can name, and they're the ones doing the heavy lifting on the back end so I can focus on you and your team.
Service Buddy is family-owned, and we built it so the people who designed the product are the same people who set up your store. So when you ask me "can it do this?" the answer is real. And when you ask for something it can't do yet, the person who can change that is already on the call with you.
I've also sat with enough flooring retailers to know what your day actually looks like — an interior designer at the counter who wants to charge her account, a manager who needs a sample tagged and priced for tomorrow, and an installer asking where his next job is. That context shows up in how I run your onboarding.
Three things to get done before go-live
Once we get going, there are three things to take care of: data, hardware, and training. That's the whole list.
1. Data
Data is the lifeline of your store, and we treat it that way. I run the kickoff call myself, so we can walk through exactly what's coming over and what your data will look like on day one. From there our migration team pulls everything out of your current system — RMPro, QFloors, FloorZap, Pacific Solutions, Lightspeed, QuickBooks, or the spreadsheets in your back office. Customers, pricing tiers, vendor history, products, historical sales, inventory, open quotes, customer balances — it all comes over. The answer to "can you get my data?" is almost always yes. And if you're moving from QuickBooks Online, we can pull it all in on a single call.
Once your data is loaded, I'll walk you through it in a sandbox. Open quotes, run a sale, ring up a fake customer, try to break it. That's exactly what it's for. The night before go-live, my team wipes the sandbox and re-pulls a fresh copy of your data so you start day one with up-to-the-minute numbers.
2. Hardware
The good news: most of what you already have works. Laptops, iPads, desktops, label printers, your iPhone — bring them along.
The one piece of hardware we'll send is our POS terminal, paired with BuddyPay. That's how cards, ACH, Apple Pay, and cards-on-file all flow into the same place as your quotes and invoices — no second portal, no separate reconciliation. It's all built into the software, so it's easy for your customer and feels like magic to your employee. Other than that, you're probably good with what's already on your counter.
3. Training
I train the trainer. You designate one admin at the store as the point person for the rollout, and I work with them through a tailored three-session flow: a system unveil, daily counter fundamentals, and admin and hardware setup. Each session comes with short videos to watch ahead of time, a sandbox to practice in, and a one-pager you can share with your team. By the time your trainer meets with me, we're talking about your actual workflows, not basics.
Total time commitment for your team across the whole switch: about three hours.
The timeline: 5 days, not 5 months
Our typical timeline from kickoff to go-live is five business days — one kickoff call, three working sessions across the week, and a go-live on day five. Some stores move faster — we've taken a store live in three days when they were in a hurry — and larger multi-location operations can stretch the schedule out to a few weeks. The average store lands right around a week.
Typical kickoff-to-go-live for a single-location flooring showroom.
Total time your team spends in onboarding sessions before go-live.
Customers, products, vendors, history, balances — we pull it all.
Compare that to the 8–12 weeks most legacy flooring systems quote, and you can see why I lead with it.
Go-live day is the starting line
Here's the thing that surprises people: go-live day is the starting line, not the finish line. I don't set you up and disappear.
I'm on call for the small stuff (where's the button for X?) and the not-so-small stuff (inventory looks wrong, can you take a look?).
My support team is also based in Boston, picks up the phone, and actually knows flooring. You can call, text, or email — we work fast. And if you don't reach out to me, I'll reach out to you. I check in with every customer at least once a quarter.